Why online businesses should use video to nourish leads

Use video to enhance your digital marketing strategy

Days of old fashioned mass ads “spray and pray” approach to advertising are long gone now and what the modern day advertisers need today is more precise targeting. Video is one approach you may not have considered.

Video advertising today is organized more along the lines of a precise laser, rather than of an advertising equivalent of “shotgun” marketing. If the leads are what you are after in your online business, with 61 percent of successful businesses stating that they use video as a marketing tool. The very same tool helps them carve out revenue for themselves, as the research done by Eyeview demonstrated that using video on a landing page alone can increase conversion rates by 80 percent. The future of advertising is here and it offers lucrative propositions for those who can recognize it for what it genuinely is.

Brain as an Additional Conversion Tool

But, let us first quickly go back to the nearest past - back in 2011, a research by Treepodia showed that the conversion rate for buyers who were offered to watch video was dramatically higher across different verticals. Those looking to shop for gifts online were more easily converted to leads by 113 percent, followed by 101 percent for electronic enthusiasts. Even less “traditional” online shoppers, such as those looking for garden products recorded 43 percent higher conversion rates in case they were offered a video on a landing page of their interest.

For the majority of them, the most attractive proposition was the existence of videos (particularly those of explanatory nature), which managed to “charm” 74 percent of users who decided to buy a product immediately after watching them. Before you accuse e-commerce site owners of employing nefarious hypnosis techniques, let us remember that this is primarily an expression of human innate inclination towards visuals as opposed to written material.

This is important not only for selling products constituting the core of your online business, as you equally want your consumers to spread the word about it. Luckily for you, psychology and the human brain’s visual hunger once again offers their help at no marketing agency fees – as many as 39 percent of shoppers are more willing to share the content if it’s a video, reports Psychology Today.

Light on Resources, Heavy on ROI

As if this was not good enough, video advertising more than graciously returns whatever you decide to invest into it. According to the research prepared by Wyzowl, 76 percent of businesses were ready to confirm that, in their experience, video provided a great rate of investment. These data easily dispel the notions put forward by those who claim that the costs of video production outweighs its benefits. Video production technology has closely followed diverse trends of IT revolution in general, rendering its tools more readily available for anyone with at least elementary expertise in the field. In addition to it, it is constantly improving and made “lighter” on resources (and, consequently, your budget) by turning everyday tech such as mere phones into solid video production tools.

Nevertheless, even if you lack professional resources to plunge yourself in the business of making sophisticated videos, you have to bear in mind that your beginning can be as humble as possible, as long as you set your bar ever higher afterwards. Provided that you adequately detect what your targeted users exactly need, these statistical data will turn your videos into an equivalent of morning cups of coffee that may taste bad occasionally, yet rarely fail to deliver the goods each day.

Mobilizing Your Conversion

Video advertising profits massively from the expansion of mobile technology which makes it possible for people to watch videos “on the go”. Starting from 2013, mobile video segment has grown by about 233 percent, judging by the number of its viewers. According to trustworthy sources such as Google, mobile users are two times more likely to feel personally connected to video content they watch on their devices, compared to TV viewers or desktop users. Considering that this is the loyal audience that you want to keep in order to ensure their conversion into leads, you’ll be more than happy to learn that their number has been steadily increasing, as the mobile technology expands beyond even the wildest predictions.  At the same time, the majority of mobile and tablet users also make use of multiple devices they play their videos on, despite them being as many as three times more prone to watch videos in general compared to other consumers.

Finally, there is one more important consideration, and that is the love which Google and consequently YouTube give to your videos. According to the statistics, you have 53 times higher chance to rank better in Google searches if your website features a video [Editor's note: this is based on an old Forrester blog article which is misleading and can be disregarded]. You can go even further: with competent SEO optimization and adequate placement of links to your website or products, you online lead conversion rates are bound to skyrocket in an environment that is surely ripe for growth.

Conclusion

Global world of advertising has finally accepted online video as an indispensable component of its unstoppable commercial engine. Its trump cards are in line with a contemporary focus on the needs of a single customer and personalization of the seller’s relationship with him or her. With the advent of mobile technologies and the shift in the average consumer’s approach to the seller’s content, video becomes an effective tool for converting them into stable leads that can, almost too easily, become loyal customers.